The following post is reblogged from a post I wrote with my co-founder of the Buy Nothing Project, Rebecca Rockefeller, to be shared widely in hopes people reconsider hoarding in these times and instead rekindle our connections with each other to promote more sharing:

We live on Bainbridge Island, just a 35-minute ferry ride west of Seattle, where we’re 20 miles from Ground Zero of the US COVID-19 outbreak. Things escalated quickly just over a week ago, when Governor Jay Inslee declared a State of Emergency to help us confront the community spread of this disease. Within two hours of his announcement, our local grocery stores were empty of many household staples, from rubbing alcohol to cans of soup.

It is tempting to react to this pandemic by attempting to build a private fortress against the virus and the ills of the world. We are urging everyone to resist this embrace of scarcity thinking. Instead of stocking up on finite resources (think toilet paper), where “more for you, is less for me,” we believe the better protection for all of us comes from a sharing mindset that focuses on the abundance we have as a community.

Please read the rest of this post on our Buy Nothing, Get Everything website, where you’ll also find a forum and other “freesources” available for communities to use right now, to conserve resources, share the abundance, and connect more readily with each other during these trying times.  The rest of this post can be found here. (Thanks for continuing!)